Maria am Gestade

Maria am Gestade, historically Maria Stiegen, is a late-Gothic Roman Catholic church in Vienna's Inner City near the Danube Canal. The present building was raised from 1394; the nave was completed in 1414, the slender openwork stone-helm spire in 1429. It was the traditional parish church of the Danube boatmen, who unloaded their cargo on the then-unregulated high bank. Napoleon's troops used it as a horse stable in 1809. Since 1820 the Redemptorists have run the church; Saint Clement Maria Hofbauer is buried here, making it a quiet pilgrimage site. The narrow heptagonal Gothic choir squeezed into the street is an architectural rarity. Often nearly empty inside.